Or it's Me
by Tyleet27
Summary: “I think it’s sad,” Hermione said abruptly, and Ron turned to give her a look, squashed tomato decorating his right cheekbone like someone had decided to carve out his freckles, one by one. HRHr


Title: Or it's Me

Author: Tyleet27

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or settings within. That honor belongs entirely to J.K. Rowling.

Author's Note: Written for amyfortuna for the 2006 "I Saw Three Ships" x-mas exchange. I changed the ending just a tiny little bit from that version, but otherwise it is entirely the same!

Harry Potter danced with Ginny four times at Bill and Fleur's wedding. They would have danced more, probably, if Harry hadn't suddenly remembered all the reasons why that was a Bad Idea.

Hermione decided that while she loved the dry, bubbly feel of three glasses of champagne, she decidedly did not like feeling as maudlin as it seemed to make her.

For most of the time Harry was dancing Hermione was dancing too; with Ron, mostly, but somewhere around dance number three Ron was called away to dance with Gabrielle, and Hermione stood by the punch table and watched Harry and Ginny, sipping lightly.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Remus said softly from somewhere above her shoulder, leaning against the white cloth of the table. She'd always rather liked their ex-professor; he'd always seemed like exactly the sort of person one could confide in, or rely upon. He never once gave the impression that he had troubles of his own. Hermione thought that he looked paler than he should, with the moon weeks away—and oddly bereft, without Tonks hanging on his shoulder. She didn't want to think why.

His mouth was softer too, more relaxed than it had been since last year, she noted, and then he brought his own glass of champagne to his lips and she understood.

"You all really are growing up. It is horribly cliché, I know, but I still think of you all as being thirteen, and it is quite a suprise to see three strong adults in front of me now—well, you were always strong," he smiled, looking away from her.

"But now…," his voice grew distant, and Hermione wondered if he had ever truly been with her to begin with.

It's the champagne, she thought with a vague air of happiness. It makes everything blurrier, softer, harder to touch.

"He really does look extraordinarily like James," he said softly.

But he's not, she felt like shouting, happiness turning swiftly to irascibility. Why do all of you keep telling him that? He's different. We're all different.

"Ginny looks very pretty too, doesn't she?" Hermione asked to change the subject, and against her will her own eyes wandered away from her old professor to a crop of bright red hair and rose petal robes across the room.

She held up her champagne glass and watched them through the bubbles, and she understood.

Remus smiled like the quirking of his lips tore open an old scar, and there was no need for him to gesture wearily to the dancing couple because they were both already watching. "She is lovely," he agreed, and that was all.

The dancers looked almost like they were fading into a photograph as Hermione watched; the time-yellowed face of James peering down at a younger redhead while Lily's eyes looked tenderly up into her son's, mixing together in a swirl of red and black and bright green eyes with similarities so poignant it hurt.

When she finally turned away, Lupin was watching them with a yearning look on his face she would have never associated with his usual calm strength.

"Beautiful," he repeated.

She took another sip of champagne and nodded, helplessly.

The next time was when they were back at Grimmauld Place, and she was nose deep in a book whose title even she didn't remember anymore, while Harry practiced spellwork and Ron sifted through Kreacher's piles—the elf seemed to have hidden them in every pocket the place possessed.

It was as if, Harry had said when they first came back to the house, their grand plans of 'conquering the house' before had only made it angry—the curses weren't diffused throughout the entire house now, but concentrated and ready to burst, like land mines.

"Ouch!" Ron swore into the silence (silence that seemed to have been going on since June) as a doxy latched onto his finger.

Harry had it by the wings by the time Hermione looked up from her book, and tossed it into a garbage bag charmed specifically for that purpose.

"All right?" he asked with a green-eyed frown, grabbing Ron's hand and carefully inspecting it.

"That's the sixth bite on this finger, that is!" Ron exclaimed indignantly. "Think I've got at least ten more on each of my other ones!"

"You can't have found that many since your last sandwich break, Ron," Hermione teased, already turning back to her book.

"Yes I have! You haven't been down here, have you? Got marks all the way up my arm!"

"Mm. Oh! I—I really think I may have found something on the Hufflepuff cup, Harry…"

Ron groaned. "Please, Merlin, not another false lead….I need more sandwiches. Honestly, I'm suddenly overcome."

"Speaking of breaks…," Harry said quietly, (he was almost always quiet now, when he wasn't yelling) and gave a pointed look to the untouched plate at her elbow.

"I'll take a break in a minute," she said carelessly. "No, honestly, I think I may have found it this time—listen to this: 'Thee Chalyce of Loyalty Fhows both thy Leaft Defires af well an thy Greateft Defires, muchh lyke thee Mirror of whych Much haf already been Fpoken…' I think that means the cup is sort of like the Mirror of Erised, except it shows you your every desire, not just your deepest one…."

"Did you even have dinner last night?" Ron asked plaintively, and she ignored him, scanning further down the page with growing excitement.

"I—I think this really explains it!" The pages, yellowed and cracked, trembled underneath her fingers.

"What about lunch? Hermione, you haven't eaten for nearly two days!"

Harry held up a hand, looking at her intently. She quivered, her triumph rushing over her like a year's worth of food.

" This makes such perfect sense—the cup has almost the quality of a pensieve in that it can transport you into thoughts—but it doesn't show you memories, it shows you your desires…and then it…oh. Oh my…."

"What?" Harry asked with an edge of impatience, Ron silenced by the apparent confidence she spoke with. Oh it was a deMingus, no wonder, she should have known she could count on deMingus to pull through even after all these months…!

"Then it—it performs some sort of test to see if you are truly loyal to…whatever it is you desire the most…no, that must mean 'love', desire has no context there…You-Know—Voldemort will have tried to tamper with the test more than anything, though, Harry—the cup itself looks strong enough to repel almost anyone from touching it without passing its trials first; I don't want to think about how he made it a horcrux…."

"What do you mean, a test?" Ron asked worriedly, casting Harry a sharp glance.

She barely registered it, mind whirring furiously. "Almost like…like grabbing things from your burning house. The cup can tell what you love the most, and then it looks to see if you're going to be loyal to that love or not…very Hufflepuff, of course."

They already knew where the cup was, of course—the Order had proved to be good for something after all, although they weren't quite sure whatever it was they found—she thought Remus might have an idea, but he was keeping to himself, as usual.

She reached for her quill to start taking notes and upset the cold tea mug at her elbow, spilling chamomile everywhere but the deMingus, which she had the presence of mind to lift into the air.

"Oh, for—Ron, can you clear that up? I can't quite—reach my wand right n—" she broke off in alarm as her arm muscles failed, sending the book crashing downwards.

She lunged over the desk and caught the book an inch before it hit the carpet, panting heavily. There was dead silence as she moved slowly to sit back in her chair, clutching it to her chest.

"Hermione," Ron said softly, but she quelled him with a glare.

Harry silently evanesco'ed the tea away, and she pushed the book open again, determinedly.

She looked up when a white hand slipped a bookmark into the crease of the pages and two nut brown hands slammed it shut, narrowly missing her nose.

She opened her mouth to berate them (didn't they know they couldn't cosset her like that? that every moment was crucial? that this was the crescendo of an entire two months of research—?) but then she saw Ron's hands tremble on the spine of the book and Harry cut her off before she could even begin.

"You haven't eaten since breakfast yesterday, Hermione," he said tiredly.

"But I—"

"Please," Ron whispered, then continued with more bluster. "I made 'em, anyway. They're good, I swear! No ground beef in sight." It was slightly amazing, sometimes, at how much of herself Molly Weasely had managed to instill in her son at apparently an automatic level; since moving into the house Ron had assumed all the tea-boiling and food-preparing duties without any hesitation—at some other point she would have teased him about it, but she tended to forget about food lately—tended to forget about anything not two hundred years old or leather bound.

Hermione reached listlessly for a sandwich, and Harry relaxed back onto the carpet, hands moving quickly over Walburga Black's jewelry and lips murmuring countercurses in almost-silence. She could tell he wanted a look at the book himself, but wouldn't take it from her now. Strange how much she could hate him for it.

"Funny, that," Ron said, tracing his fingers along the cover of her deMingus (he almost never passed up a chance to talk now, although it was never really enough to fill up the silences.)

"Was talking to Lupin yesterday. Tonks is—y' know, always reminding him to eat stuff besides tea and chocolate, and he said that it was always Harry's dad—and—and them that reminded him to do it, before. So," he said with false brightness, "maybe 's just a bookworm thing. Preterdestined, or something, I reckon—goes with having brown hair and ink-stained fingers. You two are weirdly alike, 'Mione."

Harry looked up at Ron with a wry smile and tired eyes that said all right, let's play at normalcy, then. "Do you realize you just said a five syllable word?"

"Shove off," Ron grinned, chucking a piece of cheese from Hermione's plate at Harry (who caught it in midair with an instinct far sharper than a seeker's.)

Hermione didn't notice, because her eyes had clouded over as soon as Ron finished speaking, and she put the sandwich down, feeling suddenly ill.

"Is it really all the same?" she said softly, staring at Harry.

He frowned at her, and she wondered if he was seeing Remus superimposed over her features, the way she had seen James at the wedding.

"What're you talking about, 'Mione?" Ron tipped her chin up between one broad finger and thumb, and she instantly felt safer. Ron was normal; there were no subtle reminders in his features of anyone other than himself, warm blue eyes grounded and here and real like nothing else in the house.

"I think I understand," said Harry slowly, eyes focusing somewhere beyond her shoulder.

"Well I don't," Ron said impatiently, looking between the two of them.

"It's silly," she said apologetically, but could not shake off the sudden terror that had come upon her at the thought that they were all just photograph negatives, the Marauders diminished and destined to end their war the same way.

"Too many ghosts in this house is all," Harry said softly.

The strange thing was that Remus still lived in the house, even after Sirius was two years in the grave and it legally belonged to Harry. He never spent much time there, but every so often Hermione would come downstairs to a cup of darjeeling (none of them except Ron could stand it, and the day Ron woke up before she did was the day Malfoy would open a candy shop,) sitting on the counter, or she would find Tonks had come in, wondering if Rem' was about, and of course she'd helped herself to a biscuit, but Hermione didn't mind, did she? Hermione never did.

"Wonder he hasn't moved in with her yet," Ron chuckled during one of these times, when Tonks had just dashed upstairs to 'grab one of Rem's coats is all—you lot don't mind, right? Right.'

They were all in the kitchen together—Ron making dinner suprisingly efficiently, Harry and Hermione studying one of the books they'd managed to sneak out of the wreck of Snape's quarters at Hogwarts. They tended to all three stay in the same room—no one quite wanted to be alone these days.

"Probably it doesn't even matter," Harry had said, giving the stairs a brief glance before turning back to his spellbook. "Not like he's spending much time with her either, is it? Too busy bending over backwards so the Order can set him up as a Snape-replacement."

"Right," Ron said quietly, before brightening again. "Tonks does look sharp though, doesn't she? None of that bubblegum stuff, or that rotten mousy hair she'd got last year. I expect she's making an effort now she's got her man," he concluded happily, stirring his marinara sauce too-vigorously.

"I think it's sad," Hermione said abruptly, and Ron turned to give her a look, squashed tomato decorating his right cheekbone like someone had decided to carve out his freckles, one by one.

"I think you're batty," he said affectionately. "Taste this, will you?"

Harry kept his gaze on the book as she slipped up to Ron.

"Why, though?" Ron asked after he'd tried in vain to resist giving her a tomato-flavored kiss, "I mean, 's obvious how much happier they are, right?"

"How much happier she is," Hermione corrected him, reaching around him to drain the pasta and shooting Harry an apologetic look. "Have you noticed Remus looking any different? Except—well, except even more tired? And it's not even that; it's—"

"Wotcher, luvs," Tonks said as she came in, arms filled with apparently random clothing articles. "Oh, woops—sorry, Harry—" and with classical Tonks grace, deposited nearly half of them into Harry's lap.

Harry stood and helped her sort them while she fluttered anxiously about her 'bloody useless rubber arms.' Hermione silently went and gathered up those that had spilled over onto the floor nearer the stove.

"Hey Tonks, what's this, anyway?" Ron asked, holding up a long piece of cracked leather.

She was there in an instant to snatch it away, grey eyes wide. "That's—er—just an old jacket of Rem's, right…used to be a real wild card when he was younger, heh, well, must be going, then…ehm."

"Sure you won't stay for dinner?" Ron asked politely. "Can you believe Harry's never had spaghetti before? I mean, I'm all for Hogwarts food, but scallops and cabbage only get you so far—"

But she was already shaking her head, halfway to the door, and making her excuses in one big breath. "Sorry but no, luv—already meeting someone for a sup—Thanks, all! I'll be seeing you—later. G'bye!"

There was a moment of silence, during which the bottom of the sauce pan was burnt, though Ron didn't seem to notice.

"It's her hair," he said with dawning realization. "Pitch black. And her eyes, they're—"

"Pureblood grey," Harry finished quietly. "And if that wasn't one of Sirius' jackets, I've got a Horcrux to sell you."

"They miss him," Hermione said simply, gathering up the cheese and the grater in a distracted way.

"Yeah, but that's just—just sick!" Ron said faintly. "D'you think they—they plan it out so that she can—can—" he stopped himself, looking ill.

"No," Hermione said hastily. "No, of course I don't think they do that. I don't think they would even admit it's happening, even to themselves. It's horribly sad though—neither one of them can bear to let his memory go, and she is—well, she's trying, but I don't think…" Remus is, she finished silently, embarrassed to be speaking about them. But could she really blame him? What would she do, in his place, with Harry and—and Ron gone?

"Awful," murmured Ron, still too pale, just before he attacked the saucepan with all the intensity of a man trying to avoid a difficult subject.

"It doesn't have to be the same," Harry said intently, stepping closer to both of them. "It—what happened to them is…well, it's over."

He touched a hand to Hermione's bushy hair, thick hair that her mother always said was as coarse as a wolf's. "It's over," he said firmly, fingers sliding up to cup her cheek.

She gave a little scream as Ron spilled the saucepan and bright scalding red came rushing to the floor.

The one thing they didn't do was sleep together, for obvious reasons. She thought that Harry and Ron might be sharing a room—they had for six years, after all—but she took the old guest room where she and Ginny used to sleep and pretended that she wasn't afraid of waking up in the middle of the night to find that she was the only one left in the house—that Harry and Ron had decided to leave her at the last minute in some misguided attempt to protect her and both died in a blaze of glory that would leave her behind forever.

She opened her eyes to the darkness of her bedroom and the painting of a woman facing the bed that never seemed to sleep—she never spoke, thankfully, but neither did her eyes ever seem to shut.

"Stop," she said coldly, irrationally. "Stop looking at me." The woman gazed back silently, and Hermione was filled with the desire to rip the painting off the wall despite the Sticking Charm—she knew how, now, thanks to Snape's library—but instead she pulled on a robe and padded softly downstairs (but not before grabbing her wand from under the pillow.)

Harry was sitting by the fireplace, white as bone beneath the soot and (oh god was that blood?) that covered him.

"Ron's still asleep, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't scream," he said without looking away from the fire.

"You didn't," she whispered, and he turned to look at her with haunted eyes.

"Oh my god, you did, you went without us—" and then she threw herself on him, clinging tightly to his shoulders and trying to suppress the sobs of mingled fear and relief that rose up in her chest.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," he murmured into her hair, one hand absently stroking her back.

"You—you utterly stupid, stupid—" she couldn't seem to make her words make sense, so she drew back, checking him quickly for any sign of injury (beyond the blood, which couldn't be his, not if he was still alive) and probing with her magic for any signs of Imperius.

"You should have done that when you first realized I'd been out," he reprimanded her gently once he'd come up clean.

"But did you get it?" she drew in a sharp breath as he unclenched his right hand to reveal a delicately wrought gold cup engraved with a badger.

"Oh," she breathed, and, glancing up at him for permission, gently levitated it in the air between them, inspecting it from all angles.

He smiled bitterly. "It's the real thing, I promise."

There was a small pause, and then she conjured a small lamp-table to set it on.

"How—?" she began, and he stopped her with a twist of his mouth.

"I can't—don't ask me to—"

"Of course not," she said immediately. "You'll tell us when you're ready."

He gave a harsh bark of laughter. "That is almost exactly something Remus said to me once."

She stiffened. "Harry—"

"You know what I really realized, though?" he continued, and she could see a strange light in his eyes that had nothing to do with magic or the firelight, "I don't love Ginny."

He turned to face her. "I'm James and she's Lily, that's what you're thinking, right? Well there you go, because even if we're following the same—the same pattern—I don't love her."

He was suddenly far too close to her, and if she'd looked up she might have seen the terror in his eyes, but she was looking at the flecks of blood on his lips instead, and tasted sweat and fear on her own.

She swallowed, with difficulty. "Harry—you're tired—we should wake up Ron—or something—"

He leaned forward, caught her hands, blurring little red marks into them. "A-am I wrong? There wasn't ever a time when—it could have gone differently?"

Yes, she said silently. Believe me, Harry, up till I was thirteen I was sure it would be you, and not him.

Aloud she said "I love Ron." And she meant it, she really did.

He laughed again, tiredly. "I know." Like Remus loved Sirius, and would always love him. "Ron is—I—" but he stopped, dropping his head briefly onto his chest.

"Harry—"

"I'm tired. Please—let's just go to sleep. I'll tell Ron about the cup in the morning."

Strange, she thought as she followed him up the stairs, the sharp tang of blood on her tongue. I had almost forgotten about the Horcrux.

"I hate it," Ron said passionately as all three stared at the cup. "The locket should be the easiest one to find! And it's the only one we don't know where it is!"

Hermione ran through her list—the diary and ring were gone, the cup they had, the sword was being kept by McGonagall, (though she didn't know what she guarded), the shield—they weren't sure about the shield, but Harry was almost certain that Snape had it hidden. It made sense—the locket went to the Blacks, eventually, the diary freely given to the Malfoys, and the shield to the half-blood prince….

"'Dung could have sold it anywhere," Harry agreed, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. Mundungus Fletcher had died two months ago.

"We'll find it," Hermione said grimly. "But right now, we need to find out now to destroy this one." She didn't want to ask it of Harry, but if they didn't know exactly what his experience had been, they would have no idea where the weaknesses were, what spell to use…

With practiced casualness, she said "Harry, do you think you could get your pensieve…?"

"Right." He met her gaze briefly—a granting of permission— and vanished upstairs.

She returned her attention to the horcrux, but let herself be tugged away so Ron could kiss the very tip of her nose.

"Hey," he said softly. "What's wrong, 'Mione? I mean, besides everything."

She had to smile at him for that, leaning into his chest. "Just worried."

"Yeah, well stop worrying, kay?" he blew at a strand of her hair that was threatening to engulf him. "You're worrying me."

"Naturally it's all about you," she said wryly, and he grinned.

"Got it in one."

But in an instant his face sobered as a sharp cry rent the air, and she Side-along apparated them both upstairs, wands drawn.

They blinked into existence in Harry's bedroom, and took in the situation at a glance—Harry, crumpled in a ball on the floor, and a dark robed figure bending down over him, rotting fingers tilting his chin upwards, upwards, upwards—!

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!" Ron bellowed, and a small silver dog sprang out of his wand, knocking it back towards the—the closet?

"Riddikulus!" Hermione called out sharply, and it gave a small shriek of rage before disappearing with a small pop. "Just a boggart," she said, but Ron was already kneeling next to Harry, hands on his shoulders.

She'd only rarely seen Harry in tears before, and each time she was struck anew by the sheer greenness of his eyes, and was slightly suprised that the tears themselves were clear as water.

"Only a boggart," Ron was saying soothingly. "Only a stupid, ugly boggart."

Harry shook even more, and Hermione realized with a start that he was laughing, laughing even as he slapped his tears away angrily.

"Ron," he trembled, "Ron y-your patronus—it—it's—"

"A terrier, yeah, I know," Ron said, annoyed. "And if you're gonna start teasing me about it now, after you're the one that taught me how to do it, Harry…."

"No!" Harry laughed, turning his face up so that Hermione could see the tears that were still streaming down it, "Your patronus is a dog. A dog!"

He laughed till he couldn't breathe anymore and Hermione had to cast Stupefy on him to get him to stop.

"Is he asleep?"

"He's asleep."

"He still won't tell us about how he got the cup…"

"I know."

"What—what are we supposed to do?"

"…Wait, I expect."

"Shouldn't we…I don't know, call someone? Madame Pomfrey, maybe, or—?"

"He said we weren't to, remember? Wait till he wakes up, and if there's no change by then, I reckon we can call."

"…You've changed, you know. Grown up, maybe. I don't remember noticing it happening."

"We've all had to get older, 'Mione. Harry most of all, I think—but you, too. I—Im sorry you can't take your N.E.W.T.s. I know that's what you thought you'd be doing this year, and—"

"And there are more important things than what I thought I'd be doing, Ron."

"Yeah. And there's more important stuff than quidditch, and caring about house points and—and the twin's jokeshop—did I tell you they've had to close it? Got the owl this morning. All set to re-open after we win, of course, but…"

"I—did he just move? I thought I saw him move."

"Not moving now."

"I—I'm so—"

"Yeah."

"I—I need to go and—there's a book, a muggle book, but it still might help if…"

"All right, Hermione."

She had lied. Alone in the kitchen, trying not to flinch away from the shadows, Hermione touched her index finger to Harry's pensieve, and was instantly swept away.

She was wrong. It was not like deciding what to rescue from a burning building. It was like watching everyone you loved drowning all around you and knowing you could only bring one person to the surface.

All around her, Sirius fell through the Veil a thousand times. Dumbledore was swept off the Tower a thousand more, Ginny and Seamus and Neville and Parvati and Dean and Hagrid were killed in a hundred new and horrifying ways, each crying out for Harry to save them.

But her eyes were drawn to the images that appeared most frequently—her own face twisted in agony, and Ron's blue eyes wide with pain.

Harry, please! her mirror screamed, and Hermione let the tears come.

It was several hours before she came back upstairs, trembling with intensity and filled with the instinctive need to comfort as well as be comforted, she opened the door.

Ron was asleep sitting up; his back was to the headboard while Harry was curled up on his side, resting against the other's chest. Ron's head was drooped so that the ends of his hair brushed the top of Harry's. Ron's hand was resting on Harry's shoulder, as though he had stopped midstroke.

Looking at the two of them, caught in a pose far more tender than any they would have shown her in daylight—or even to eachother as little as a year ago, before they were all forced to grow up—she was hard pressed to say which one she loved more. She remembered the pensieve and let her heart break just a little bit.

Silently she moved to shut the door, but the movement apparently woke Harry, because there were twin green lamps fastened on her.

He didn't move, but mouthed 'stay' to her, so she came slowly forward and sat on the edge of the bed, just in front of them.

Ron's arms tightened around Harry at the movement and mumbled sharply, but Harry whispered something and he quieted.

Then Harry turned to look at her so she reached out lightly and touched his hand, hoping he could read it all in her skin—are you all right, please tell me you're okay, I'm so sorry, I saw, I know, I am so sorry.

Apparently he could, because he curled his fingers around her wrist and smiled faintly, and in that smile she could see both the reassurance and the confession—I'm all right, only horcrux-aftermath, I know you watched, it—let's not—I can't talk about it right now, yes? Shh….

She could feel the tears that had been in her eyes for over two hours rising in her eyes and knew that was not what he wanted from her, so she tried to blink them away and kissed him on the forehead, hand smoothing fondly over Ron's hair in the same motion.

"I'll never leave you," she said, mouth jerking like it couldn't decide whether to smile or frown, and she had no idea who she meant.

Harry closed his eyes, and for a moment she thought she'd made a terrible mistake. But when she tried to pull away he wouldn't let go of her wrist.

"I should beat you up," Ron was saying softly as she woke.

Hermione looked up through sleep heavy lashes and saw a shock of red hair just to the right and above, and deduced after a moment of deep thought that the warmth pressed against her back was Harry.

"Ginny is my little sister," he continued, and she shut her eyes again. "You are not supposed to tell protective older brothers you broke up with their sisters just cause you stopped liking them, not because of some, I dunno, martyrish ideas about war and heroes and stuff."

"I didn't stop liking her. I like her a lot," Harry said steadily, his breath tickling Hermione's ear.

"Stopped fancying her then," Ron huffed, "Whatever. All I'm saying is, your first excuse was better, and you should've stuck with it."

"I thought you'd be angrier than you are, actually."

"I'm bloody furious, trust me. Only I haven't had any caffeine yet."

"I am sorry, Ron."

There were fingers smoothing her hair over the pillow, and she had no idea whose they were.

"Yeah, sure." The fingers on her hair withdrew abrubtly and Ron gave a sharp intake of breath that made her wish she could see where they were resting now.

"Ron…" Harry's voice was slow, hesitant, and she could hear Ron's encouraging smile in the silence. "The cup…well, it did what we thought it did. Except it wasn't fast, like Hermione thought. It…it took me backwards, Ron. There was Sirius and Remus and my dad and my…my mum," he swallowed audibly. "And I…watched their whole story playing through, right, and the sad thing was that they all—they all—really loved eachother."

His fingers were back on her hair again, flattening it with little jerky hand movements.

"And it was all because of Voldemort that they ended up…hating. My dad died, Ron—he died to save me and my mum, but he basically had it the easiest—he was the hero." Harry's voice was raw, now, and his hand tightened painfully in her hair. "He died, and Sirius and Remus—the cup—it let you see inside everyone's heads, not just watch—and…it was awful," he finished slowly.

Hermione remembered. It was—something so deeply tragic that no one should have to bear watching it. James died, Sirius died, Peter was corrupted into evil, and Remus was old. He couldn't have been forty yet, and he was old. The most promising minds of their time, McGonagall had said. She expected great things from them, but they were all dead now anyway, and most of their lives had been spent in fear.

"Harry," Ron said helplessly, and she knew he was gripping Harry's shoulder.

"That's not all. Then it…it changed. I could see what the future would be, and it was all the same. I'm going to die fighting Voldemort," he paused and Hermione felt like crying at the surety in his voice, "and—you and Hermione are going to—to suffer, just like they did. And it'll all be the same, because there was Grindewald, and then there was Voldemort, and now he's here again, and after him there'll be someone else and you two are going to die under that and I—I was already dead and I couldn't help you. Either of you."

"Oh, Harry," she burst out, abandoning the pretense of sleep and throwing herself at him.

Ron's arms came up around her back, and there they were, all three together, and it was awkward and her hair was caught under Ron's chin and she sobbed into Harry's shoulder a little harder because it felt so perfect…!

"So this is what's been bothering you. Both of you, you bloody idiots," Ron said roughly. His arms were stretched right over Hermione over to Harry, and his thumbs were lightly tracing over Harry's cheekbones.

"But," Hermione began, and stopped, her throat too tight to speak. But I'm afraid for both of you, with your stupid overprotectiveness and Harry's martyring tendencies, so afraid that you're going to get yourselves killed and leave me…alone…

"But nothing," Ron insisted, and she could feel the smile against her neck the way she knew Harry could see it, "History is not gonna repeat itself. Everything is different this time. We have a chance," he said forcefully.

Harry looked pained. "I don't—"

"Stop it," she snapped, suddenly very aware of the way her breasts were smashed against his chest by the full weight of Ron's back, and she forced herself to let go of his neck, though her arms screamed at the loss. "You are going to do it, Harry, you're going to win—we have almost all of the horcruxes, we know where to find all the others—"

"And you are not going to die with him," Ron growled. "I'd die before I'd let that happen—but it won't. Because we're not—not playing the same bloody song anymore. You're not in love with my sister, I'm not going to get myself thrown in prison under any circumstances, and yeah, I don't see any Pettigrews around here, d'you? And that's not even the important thing because—" he paused, got up off the bed, and turned so he could look straight at both of them.

"Because your dad and all them weren't nearly this much," and his hand trailed along Harry's chin, the other moving steadily to cup her neck.

"This much…?" she drew in a too sharp breath as Ron gave her that reckless look he always used to get before he said something cruel to her or hexed Malfoy or threw the whole jar of beetle eyes into his cauldron in the frantic hope that it would fix his Potions grade.

Then he leaned in and kissed Harry.

Her hands flew to her mouth as she gasped, rocking backwards onto the pillows with her muscles like jelly because, because oh god that was Harry's throat flexing as he instinctively tipped his head upwards, and those were Ron's eyes, still open and blue as summer and searching out hers, desperately seeking approval that this was all right.

Harry jerked his head away and he looked wildly between them, mouth swollen and red and oh, but she wanted to taste…

"This much," Ron said unevenly, and blushing worse than he had when they were still children, six months ago and he had asked her out.

There was a moment of silence where all three looked at eachother—really looked, and it was more than the way Harry had two of his fingers pressed tightly to his lips like he could make his blush go away by force, more than the way Ron's hands were clenching and unclenching in his lap, more than the way her heart was beating a tattoo on the inside of her chest so loudly she couldn't hear herself think at all. It was more than any of that.

Then Harry gave a great shuddering sigh and touched his hand very very lightly to Ron's, and then to hers.

"Yes," he said simply, coloring so deep a red he was almost purple. "I…if that's what you…both…want." He turned to look at her apprehensively, and she was struck by the familiarity of that look—he'd turned to her like that every year since they were eleven every time he'd forgotten to do his homework, had accidentally spilled pumpkin juice all over her new book, had lost Gryffindor another twenty points for language—but never on purpose.

Tears were streaming down her face, she realized with a start, and had been for a while now. Best not give the wrong impression, she thought dizzily, and flung herself at him for the second time that morning, missing Ron's joyous bark of laughter in the mingling of their lips, but not missing the tender press of his mouth against the back of her neck, or the faint hints of moisture against her cheeks that she thought were not entirely her own tears.

When she got her breath back she managed to tell them that she'd been in love with both of them forever.

"That's good, then," Ron said in a tone much calmer than what he must have felt, while Harry muffled a panicked laugh at the use of the "L" word into her throat.

"See? Different," Ron grinned, pulling them back down onto the bed.

"It is," Harry released, kissing the very edge of her ear. "I—it is."

It was.


End file.
